Raisin

A Raisin in the Sun obviously is a play that needs no improvement, but someone’s done it. Court Theatre’s staging of the Tony-winning musical based on Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal (and semi-autobiographical) play veritably pulses with the kind of courageous intensity it took the playwright’s father to move his family into an all-white Chicago neighborhood nearly 70 years ago. And, ironically, the Hansberrys’ dreams were nearly deferred—in the words of the Langston Hughes poem from which the play’s title is drawn—in Court’s own South Side backyard, in Washington Park, protected in the ’30s by racist housing covenants that were ultimately eradicated in the Supreme Court via the Hansberrys’ challenge.

Continuing the minimalization of big, traditional musicals they undertook with Guys and Dolls and Man of La Mancha, Newell and music director Doug Peck have sculpted what’s really a play with music, using the musical numbers of Raisin to realize the story of the Younger family’s struggle to get ahead even more potently perhaps than the original source. Moments are punctuated by a smashing gospel quartet, and the solid cast keeps us in full thrall when singing the jazz, blues and gospel-inflected score. Ernestine Jackson, Tony-nominated in 1974 for the original Broadway Raisin, is the production’s linchpin, delivering the dignity and hope of the Younger matriarch most especially through her sweet but commanding voice. And the enthusiasm the cast and quartet, seated around the playing area chorus-style, show as they regard the unfolding action is as infectious as their onstage zeal and talent is captivating.—Megan Powell